I recently added another video to my online carving school. It is a very sweet carving of an incised maple leaf – also referred to as intaglio. This project is great for if you just want a nice design in a flat board – such as a jewelry box. Instead of lowering the whole background outside the design, as in a relief carving, the design itself is carved down. This was carved only 1/8″ deep. You can use this technique for many different designs – leaves, flowers. The video is about 22 minutes long.
The simple technique is as follows:
1. carve with a v-chisel inside the leaf edge just under 1/8″ deep
2. define the edge of the leaf with a vertical cut with gouges that fit the curved edges. Make the cross grain cuts first to create stop cuts so when you make the cuts along the grain, the fragile pieces don’t break.
3. lower down much of the leaf with a #8, 6mm. Then flatten and shape the background with a #3, 3mm, #3, 6mm, #3, 14mm.
4. with a v-chisel, carve the vein lines
And there you have it!
Happy carving!
Mary: This would be a great project to use for a personalized Christmas Gift as a cookie press. These are very popular in Germany. Just use a hardwood like cherry and flour the mold before pressing. An adaption would be to carve leaves from your state or local, or multi leaves. The pressing would produce a “Positive Image”
What better gift to give to a loved one that would become a heirloom.
Roy
Great idea Roy!
I have another idea long those lines. I once had a request to carve 3 grandchildren’s faces into a huge chocolate bar – didn’t get the job 🙁
I would have been able to eat the shavings…
How about carving your loved-one’s faces in reverse and make cookies??? Now THAT would be a challenge!
You can make forestry scenes. These are popular throughout the Midwest United States. You can do that on things like jewelry boxes, and using warm woods such as Maple and Oak. That way, it gives the jewelry box, a design and a look that would make it worth much more.
Hi Jesse,
Yes, and these designs can be either applied to the carving (scroll sawed out and glued on) or carved into the top or sides of the jewelry box. The subjects are endless when you start looking at nature.
Have fune